1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to power conversion devices and vehicles equipped therewith, and particularly to structures of power conversion devices considering passive safety against collision.
2. Description of the Background Art
Hybrid vehicles, electric vehicles and other similar vehicles employing an electric motor as a motive power source are equipped with inverters, converters and other similar power conversion devices. These power conversion devices receive high voltage corresponding to the high-power motor. Accordingly, passive safety against collision must sufficiently be considered.
Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2001-097052 discloses a structure employed to attach a vehicular accessory component that provides improved safety against collision. This structure allows an accessory component disposed in a vehicle's engine room to be arranged to incline relative to the vehicle's fore-aft direction and assembled to a reinforcement member of the vehicle via a support member also assembled to the reinforcement member simply by engagement to allow the accessory component to be movable when the engine room is compressed and thus deformed.
This structure can prevent the accessory component from transferring an impact rearward in a collision and also prevent a harness of the like's disconnection to provide a high level of safety against collision.
Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2001-097052, however, does not particularly consider the accessory component's deformation and damage caused by collision. For example, for the sake of cost reduction and handability, a power conversion device can have a connector assembling portion external to a casing of the main body of a power converter to assemble a connector of an external power line, and secured to the vehicle's main body to secure the power conversion device to the vehicle's main body.
For such arrangement, if the vehicle collides and the casing accordingly receives external force, the external force is concentrated at the connector assembling portion connected to the vehicle's main body and the connector assembling portion, which receives high voltage, may be deformed and damaged. Furthermore, the deformed and damaged connector assembling portion may contact and as a result deform or damage the casing and hence the main body of the power converter accommodated in the casing. As a power conversion device is often arranged at a position higher than a vehicle's bumper, it may severely be deformed, damaged or the like when the vehicle collides with an object higher in level than the bumper.
Accordingly it is necessary not only to prevent the accessory component from transferring an impact rearward when the vehicle collides, as described in Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2001-097052, but also protect the power conversion device against deformation and damage to provide improved passive safety against collision. Furthermore, there is a strong demand for reduction in cost and size for hybrid, electric and other similar vehicles, and reduced cost and smaller space as well as effectively improved passive safety are required.
The arrangement disclosed in Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2001-097052 requires a space for ensuring the accessory component's displacement, which also prevents the vehicle from having a reduced size.